Illinois Trivia & Tidbits - Page 11

Looking for Illinois trivia? Try our list Illinois little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

Illinois entered the Union on Dec. 3, 1818, with a population of 34,620. Today, the state has 12.4 million residents.

first appeared: 4/27/2003

In 1779, Haitian immigrant Jean-Baptiste Point du Sable established a trading post near the mouth of the Chicago River, creating Chicago’s first permanent settlement.

first appeared: 4/20/2003

One of a handful of wooden grain elevators in the country, the 1903 J.H. Hawes Elevator in Atlanta (pop. 1,649) was restored and reopened as a museum in 1999.

first appeared: 4/13/2003

In 1946, Ed Waldmire created the cozy dog, a deep-fried battered hot dog on a stick, and first called it a crusty cur. His Cozy Dog Drive-in in Springfield is a Route 66 landmark.

first appeared: 4/6/2003

Dubbed “the galloping courthouse,” the 1737 French-built vertical log courthouse in Cahokia (pop. 16,391) was dismantled and exhibited at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, then moved to Jackson Park in Chicago, and returned to its original foundation in 1936. It still stands today.

first appeared: 3/30/2003

Searching for their Utopia on the prairie, Swedish religious dissidents immigrated with leader Erik Jansson and founded the communal village of Bishop Hill (pop. 125) in 1846.

first appeared: 3/23/2003

Waukegan is the hometown of comedian Jack Benny, who was born Benjamin Kubelsky on Feb. 14, 1894.

first appeared: 3/16/2003

Cartoonist Harold Lincoln Gray, a native of Kankakee (pop. 27,491), created a comic strip about an orphan named Otto, then changed the character’s gender because there were too many adventure strips featuring boys. Little Orphan Annie debuted in 1924 in the New York Daily News and Gray drew the successful comic strip until his death in 1968.

first appeared: 3/9/2003

The 1873 Charter Oak School in Randolph County is the state’s only octagonal one-room schoolhouse.

first appeared: 3/2/2003

The state’s largest remaining stand of native white pines grows in the 43-acre White Pines Forest Nature Preserve at Mount Morris (pop. 3,013).

first appeared: 2/23/2003

Miss America 2003, Erika Harold, 22, hails from Urbana (pop. 36,395) and graduated from the University of Illinois with Phi Beta Kappa honors.

first appeared: 2/16/2003

In 1965, the General Assembly designated fluorite—used to make steel, enamels, aluminum, glass, and chemicals—the state mineral. Commercial mining ceased in southeastern Illinois in 1995.

first appeared: 2/9/2003

In 1880, George Pullman created the first company town, Pullman, to house workers who built his railway sleeping cars. Today, the town in southeast Chicago is a historic district.

first appeared: 2/2/2003

Headquartered in Oak Brook (pop. 8,702), Lions Clubs International is the world’s largest service club organization, with 1.4 million members in 189 countries.

first appeared: 1/26/2003

Navitas Energy, a wind power company, is developing the state’s first wind farm in the Mendota Hills in rural Lee County. The farm’s turbines will produce enough electricity to supply about 15,000 households.

first appeared: 1/19/2003

Completed in 1848, the 97-mile Illinois and Michigan Canal, which linked the Mississippi River and Great Lakes, was the last great waterway built during the canal era.

first appeared: 1/12/2003

During the Civil War, residents of southern Illinois—a region long known as Little Egypt—presented a horse named “Egypt” to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.

first appeared: 1/5/2003

Founded in 1828, McKendree College in Lebanon (pop. 3,523) is the oldest college in the state and the oldest in the nation with continuous ties to the United Methodist Church.

first appeared: 12/29/2002

Encompassing 19,426 acres, Pyramid State Park south of Pinckneyville (pop. 5,464) is the state’s largest state park.

first appeared: 12/22/2002

Most of the state’s lakes are man-made for flood control or as reservoirs. The few true lakes are glacial in origin, formed in depressions in the northeast part of the state when glacial ice melted.

first appeared: 12/22/2002

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